Bowden Institution to launch needle exchange despite union concerns

A corrections van drives on the main the entranceway to the Bowden Institution.Ted Rhodes / Calgary Herald

Inmates will be provided with clean needles, but must use them to inject drugs out of sight, in their cells.

The union representing Canadian correctional officers is warning that a harm-reduction program to be implemented at a Bowden prison, which would give inmates access to needles to use drugs, could increase safety risks to each other and staff.

Instead, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers says the federal government should be using an alternative program in prisons that mimics supervised consumption sites, allowing supervision by medical professionals when drugs are injected.

The program has been around since June 2018, having been rolled out at nine federal institutions across Canada “to help prevent the sharing of needles among inmates and the spread of infectious diseases.”

To take part in the program, an inmate must receive approval from prison authorities, who are responsible for confirming there are no security concerns related to their participation. Kits containing a plastic container, a clean needle and other items are provided to participants, who obtain drugs through their own means.

“There’s very little trust in the program,” said James Bloomfield, the Prairie president for the correctional officers union.

“On the officer side of it, we have found the inmates have shared the needles. The inmates have not secured them as they are supposed to, leaving their doors open.”

He said inmates are left alone to consume their drugs within their cells, rather than under medical supervision.

“They have to illegally get their drugs into the institution and then they hide or curl up in a corner, so to speak, and inject,” said Bloomfield.

“It’s ‘go take it, hide it,’ because no one’s supposed to know that you’re doing this. It is not supposed to be public knowledge for anybody that they are doing this.”

So far, the Edmonton Institution for Women is the only other federal prison in Alberta that has implemented the prison needle exchange program.

Correctional Service Canada declined an interview Friday, but spokeswoman Véronique Rioux said in an emailed statement that appropriate safeguards are in place at every institution to ensure prison needle exchange program kits “are safely stored and accounted for at all times.”

She added there have been no safety incidents involving staff or other inmates at the nine prisons where the program is in place.

Like supervised consumption sites, such as the one at Calgary’s Sheldon M. Chumir Centre, the Drumheller program allows inmates to inject drugs under the supervision of trained nurses in a designated location within the prison’s health-care unit.

“It’s a much more controlled program and safer for everybody involved,” Bloomfield said of the program, which has been around more than six months. “It’s been well-accepted by the inmate populations and it keeps the danger of having that needle and that inmate curling up in a corner out of the cells.”

Bloomfield said he “can’t understand why” the federal government isn’t on board with the alternative model.

Drumheller InstitutionNADIA MOHARIB/SUN MEDIA

But Rioux said “there is no single effective intervention in managing problematic substance use” and that Drumheller was selected for the alternative model “based on the health needs of the population.” She said the program would also be implemented at the Springhill Institution in Nova Scotia.

Janet Rowe, executive director of Ontario-based prisoner health and harm-reduction organization PASAN, said there has never been a reported attack involving equipment from prison needle exchange programs, despite the concerns expressed by correctional officers.

She said it could be difficult for overdose prevention sites, like the one at Drumheller Institution, to exist without risking further stigmatization to inmates.

“For a prison-based overdose prevention site to succeed, prisoners must trust staff and be confident that they can access this service confidentially, without exposing them to further stigma and criminalization,” said Rowe, whose organization provides support to prisoners and ex-prisoners across Canada.

“In the current prison environment this would be virtually impossible — and prison guards would certainly be aware of prisoners who are using the overdose prevention site. Further overdose prevention sites should not replace prison needle and syringe programs, which are widely accepted and studied and have been successfully implemented in prisons around the world for almost 30 years.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article contained quotes provided by a representative of PASAN, which the organization later retracted. PASAN provided an updated statement, included above, which it described as a more accurate representation of its position on prison needle exchange programs.

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